Floristry students at Greenmount Campus were invited to ‘Meet the Grower’ when Alan Mitchell of Flamelily Flowers, Banbridge, paid a visit to the Campus to give an insight into commercial cut flower growing in Northern Ireland. The visit was organized by David Davidson, CAFRE’s Cut Flower Development Advisor, to highlight the range of locally grown material now available to Northern Ireland’s florists.

Flamelily Flowers is currently the largest producer of cut hydrangea in the UK and Ireland and is developing a range of other flower crops; including peonies, eryngium, and anemones, for sale through local wholesalers and export via the Dutch auction system.

Alan’s first crop of the year is protected anemones, so to promote the crop for spring sales, the students were provided with a selection of his anemones and willow grown as part of the foliage project at the College. The students quickly produced a range of individual designs suitable for use as tablecentres, bouquets or impulse buys. Alan was delighted with the range of designs and students could see just how versatile the crop is and get valuable hands on experience.

Anne Henry, of Flowers @ Anne’s, Ballycastle, commented, ‘Customers are increasingly aware of the high quality and long vase life of our locally grown flowers and foliages, so it has been great to see what will be available this year and work with these materials. We will all have the chance to gauge customers’ response to our designs and I know I will be including anemones in my orders – the colours are fabulous!’

Selection of anemone designs

CAFRE’s floristry students show their design talent using anemones supplied by Alan Mitchell, of Flamelily Flowers (centre)

Julie Lee, Floral Creations @ Home & Garden, Coleraine, (centre) with David Davidson, CAFRE’s Cut Flower Development Advisor (left) and Alan Mitchell of Flamelily Flowers

Alan Mitchell of Flamelily Flowers with Sarah Jane Farrell, Amays, Armagh, and her anemone design